Every Time Men Have Landed on the Moon

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, became a licensed student pilot at 16, before he got his driver’s license. He and fellow Apollo 11 crew member Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, both served during the Korean War. Before Michael Collins piloted the command module during the Apollo 11 mission, he had become the third American to walk in space during the Gemini X mission in 1966.

The Apollo 12 mission reunited Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon. They had flown together on the Gemini 11 in 1966, a mission that set a then-record human space flight altitude of 853 miles. Conrad had flown into space twice before the Apollo 12 mission. The Apollo 12 space shot would be Alan Bean’s first space fight. He would later fly on Skylab 3. The Apollo 12 crew spent almost three times as long outside the lunar module than their Apollo 11 predecessors.

The Apollo 14 mission marked Alan Shephard’s return to space after becoming the first American in space 10 years earlier. Shepard set a distance record by walking more than 9,000 feet on the moon, pulling a cart of tools and collecting lunar samples. He and Edgar Mitchell spent a record 33 hours and 31 minutes on the lunar surface and collected 94 pounds of material. Stuart Roosa, the pilot on the mission, would later lead NASA’s space shuttle program.

David Scott had already flown on the Gemini 8 and Apollo 9 space shots before Apollo 15. Scott accumulated more than 546 hours in space during his astronaut career. He and James Irwin spent almost three days on the lunar surface, exploring the Hadley Rille and Apennine Mountains regions. They drove their Lunar Rover 1, the first lunar roving vehicle, 18 miles, the longest distance traveled on the moon, and collected 180 pounds of lunar samples. During the return flight to earth, pilot Alfred Worden took a space walk. He was deeply moved by his experiences and published a book of poetry about them in 1974.

John Young was the first American astronaut to make six space flights. He participated in both the Gemini and Apollo programs. He was the copilot with Virgil Grissom on Gemini 3, the first U.S. two-man spaceflight, in 1965. Young and Charles Duke were on the moon for 71 hours and spent 21 hours in extravehicular activities, gathering 211 pounds of lunar materials. After retiring from NASA, Duke became an entrepreneur, minister, and author, publishing his autobiography, “Moonwalk,” in 1990. Thomas “Ken” Mattinglywas set to be the pilot for the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission but was removed 72 hours before launch because of exposure to the German measles. He got into space as the pilot of Apollo 16. He would later be commander for the last orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1982, and the commander of the Discovery three years later.

Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt were the last people to leave their footprints on the moon. Cernan had flown in two prior space flights. He was the second American to walk in space during the Gemini 9 flight in 1966 and he was the pilot of the Apollo 10 mission, the last space shot before the historic moon landing by Apollo 11. Schmitt, a geologist, was the only astronaut to have walked on the moon without a military background. He later became a U.S. senator from New Mexico and wrote the book “Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space.” Command module pilot Ronald E. Evans walked in space for an hour and six minutes during the return flight to Earth.

Apollo 17 established the following records in lunar exploration: longest manned lunar landing flight (301 hours and 51 minutes); longest lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours and four minutes); and largest lunar sample return (an estimated 249 pounds).